Who is Howard Lutnick, the ‘abandoned’ orphan with the fate of the global economy in his hands?

”Abandoned” orphan, 9/11 survivor, investment banking prodigy – Howard Lutnick has taken the challenges of his turbulent life in his stride.

Yet, the financial titan may now face his most unique test following his confirmation as the US’ new Secretary of Commerce under President Donald Trump.

The position is usually viewed largely as a background figure but Lutnick, who was born to a Jewish family in Jericho, New York, takes his seat at the cabinet table of one of the most fiscally activist administrations in decades.

As America’s top trade official, he will be responsible for implementing and managing the sweeping programme of tariffs the new president has pledged to use as leverage to bend the global economy to his will – policies which have the potential to reshape the liberal free trading order that has dominated geopolitics for decades.

It’s a role that will likely bring him criticism from US allies and enemies alike, but Lutnick’s fascinating background suggests he’s more than up to the turbulent task.

Born in 1961, he was a senor in high school when he lost his mother Jane to lymphoma.

His father passed away the next year, during Lutnick’s first week in college, while being treated for cancer when he was accidentally given an overdose of chemotherapy medication.

Lutnick told New York Magazine in 2001 that he and his siblings were largely “abandoned” by their remaining family, recalling: “The way I describe it, you’re either in or you’re out. What I learned in 1979, all my relatives – they stepped out. We learned to live without all of them. All of them. It was just the three of us. Gary and Edie and me.”

But he found a ray of hope when the president of Haverford College, where he was a student, called him following his father’s death to offer a full scholarship, which saw Lutnick graduate with a degree in economics in 1983.

From there, he joined the financial services giant Cantor Fitzgerald, developing a personal relationship with its co-founder Bernard Cantor. Indeed, Stuart Fraser, former vice-chair at the firm, recalled: “Bernie saw in Howard something of himself.”

Within ten years Lutnick was made CEO, before becoming chairman in 1996 aged just 35.

Then, five years into his leadership, two planes struck the World Trade Centre which housed the Cantor Fitzgerald offices.

The 9/11 attacks claimed the lives of more than two-thirds of Cantor’s employees, including Lutnick’s brother Gary, and Lutnick himself was only saved because he was taking his young son to his first day at nursery. After rushing to the North Tower to try and find out whether his brother had survived, he evaded death yet again – taking cover under a car as the South Tower fell.

In the wake of the tragedy, Lutnick and his sister Edie set up the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund, which has given out more than £140 million to the families of Cantor employees who died that day.

Since then, he has continued at the helm of Cantor and overseen a number of high-profile mergers, including the creation of his new standalone firm BGC Partners. Significantly, he also acted as a major donor to Trump’s re-election effort, co-chairing the campaign with Education Secretary-designate Linda McMahon.

Following Trump’s inauguration in January, he was heavily rumoured to be in the frame for the role of Treasury Secretary, before being formally nominate for the Department of Commerce.

He passed through a committee vote by a 16-12 margin, before being confirmed by the Senate in a 51-45 vote.

But his appointment will cause concern across the Atlantic as he is a fervent advocate of Trump’s use of tariffs to generate revenue for the Treasury and, more importantly, as a tool to ensure other nations’ compliance with the US economic agenda.

The new administration has already implemented 25 per cent tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, aimed at forcing them to ramp up border security enforcement, and is now trailing the introduction of a similar levy on Chinese electric cars.

No tariffs have yet been announced on the EU or UK, but Trump has indicated previously that they are being considered, prompting concerns of a damaging trade war.

Campaigners have also raised worries over the concessions the Trump team may want from the UK government in order to avoid tariffs or sign a free trade agreement, including the potential weakening of environmental, public health or animal welfare regulations.